DESCRIPTION

CAST

ANIME ActionShingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season
MANGA ActionShingeki no Kyojin
SPECIAL ActionShingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season - Kanketsu-hen Zenpen

REVIEWS

• 

  T11i

  50/100
  Fumbling, Fumbling, it's coming! Fumbling, Fumbling! Beware! Coming for you!

  This review contains spoilers

  As expected, Mappa could not save us from the tragedy that is the Fumbling Arc which is not surprising considering the source material is a huge disappointment in itself.

  I was dissapointed by this season due to many reasons, the main one being its pacing which is horrific. There are many scenes where characters are just talking most of which adds nothing to the plot (talking about you Pie Scene). I honestly don't recall the manga pacing being that bad but it feels like Mappa dragged out content for example the scene in the woods, we get it Mappa you can animate trees and twigs, congratulations. I feel that instead of these pointless cutaways Mappa could have expanded on scenes like Falco grieving over his brother where for some reason he manages to get over the loss in a matter of seconds.

  Another issue was that they kept scenes from the manga that had no relevance or were not needed at all, people reading this review will know what I am about to mention the dreaded pie scene. It is without doubt the stupides most terrible attempt at comedy I have witnessed in this medium. HA! HA! HA! Look at Annie guys she is eating pie, hilarious right? No it is not Connie shut your mouth, she is literally responsible for your comrades deaths but lets forgive her cause she likes pie. Sadly, this season kept in all of Connie's scenes which give us some of the most pathetic cringe moments in the medium (until 139). Connie is a stupid character, his "to save the world" line is still corny and his plan with his Mom still makes no sense and is a huge waste of time. As well as being stupid which can be forgivable, Connie is also a hypocrite he will happily work with Annie and Reiner who slaughtered his comrades and Gabi who killed one of his closest friends (essentially forgiving them for their heinous crimes) but he has no hesitations or remorse when shooting Daz and Samuel (who are his so called friends and are hesitant to shoot him but he kills them anyway just because they are Yeagerists, how about forgiving them???). He is just one of the so called heroes we are supposed to root for but due to terrible writing they come across as hypocrites and fools.

  This brings me to another issue for this season which is the characters. With Eren occupied elsewhere, we sadly had to endure Mikasa, Armin, Hange and the other members of the Cringevengers for most of the season. Mikasa thanks to the amazing writing of Isayama is reduced to two things; Eren and Scarf. This is highlighted when Armin is pouring his heart out and Mikasa's only response is "my scarf is gone". I still can't believe Mappa kept in the scene of Mikasa taking the scarf away from a dying girl with no hint of a remorse, what a character she is!
  Armin used to be a smart likeable character but after the time skip he has become a useless mess of a character. His plan to take the boat from the Yeagerists highlights his uselessness, on what planet would that stupid plan work? This is the guy that was chosen over Erwin, instead of going to meetings about Paradis' future he was simping over a frozen 16 year old girl.
  Hange is also extremely annoying, her character is now reduced to "my way is right, your way is wrong".

  Even though I have many issues with this season, there is no denying it did have its highs especially with Paths, Floch and the development of Gabi continuing. Thankfully the scenes with Eren, Zeke and Grisha were done rather well and a huge credit must be given to Grisha's VA Hiroshi Tsuchida, who I feel has delivered in all his scenes for The Final Season. The animation was also good in a lot of places, there is no doubt in my mind a Mappa employee has the hots for Armin and Floch. However, the animation like last season still suffered a great deal this is seen in many scenes of Episode 10 but thats to be expected when the employees are treated like garbage by Mappa. Also like nearly all of the AOT OPs, Rumbling was amazing although I would like to see Linked Horizon return for the eventual Part 3/movie.

  In conclusion, the only thing we can take away from this season is that Isayama is that bad of a writer he makes it so people opposing a global genocide are hypocritical idiots, or maybe that was his plan all along? Isayama, what a mangaka you are!

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• 

  Mcsuper

  76/100
  A Reversion To Action

  TLDR: This was probably my least favourite season of Attack on Titan. I can already feel the roasts coming.

  *Spoilers below

  Ah, Attack on Titan. Undoubtedly the anime of the 2010s, the defining anime of this generation. I started my Attack On Titan watch just about four months ago, binging it from the first season, up to this moment. It’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had with anime, hands down. The immersive story, the action, the emotion, we’ve been on a good roller coaster haven’t we?

  Now, to this season. From the greatness of part 1, the story picks up where it left off on that brutal cliffhanger, and starts on such a bang, with plot twist after plot twist. Since Season 3 Part 2, there have been what I call “The Banger Trilogies” in each cour. There was the set of “Perfect Game”, “Hero”, and “Midnight Sun” in Season 3, the set of “Declaration of War”, “the War Hammer Titan”, and “Assault” in Season 4 Part 1, and in this season, we had “Two Brothers”, “Memories of the Future”, and “From You, 2000 Years Ago”. My favourite set would still remain the one from Season 3, but the plot twists and reveals we had this season, was not too shabby either. The latter half of this season, was to be fair, nostalgic, it reminded me of Season 1, which I’m sure most of you would agree with, is Attack On Titan at its worst.

  My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

  STORY: 19.5/25

  *Another reminder about spoilers below

  A mixed bag to be sure. Firstly, we had the plot twist where Eren and Zeke go back in time to see what happened in the past, and it turned out Eren had more of an impact on the past than we thought, and there was this whole time travel aspect to the story, which was a good reveal, but needlessly confusing. There was this reddit post that explained the time travel aspect of the story, called “The complete guide to Chapter 121”, which I recommend you to check out if you haven’t already. There was also some backstory of the kingdom of Eldia and the backstory of Ymir and Fritz, that was quite tough to watch. The whole section of this part of the plot ends with Eren declaring the Rumbling would be beginning.

  The next part of the story is a grim reminder of what Season 1 had to offer. Just good action against the big bad Titans threatening to destroy Paradis and everyone beyond the island. It was simple, and a bit disappointing, considering the quality of the story beforehand, yet still quite nostalgic, especially when “Barricades” played in the background. There was a subplot where Connie wanted to save her mother, who was still stuck on that house in Ragako Village, which was an interesting, but a little out of place. We saw the return of Annie, which was great to see, and it led to a nice comedic moment with pies, and more of the Female Titan, we saw what happened to Levi and Hange, basically a tying of some loose ends. We see Floch continuing to be the scheming and devious man he is, and also Marley and the Survey Corps end up working together, to assemble the Avengers, as people call it. All in all, the reversion to pure action and occasional emotion is welcome, but it felt like a downgrade.

  Of course, there is also the depiction of mass genocide. Say what you will about the controversy about that, but this, combined with the time travel, just didn’t sit well with me. It felt oddly… generic, yet it felt like this might have been the only thing that could have happened, when we consider the foreshadowing.

  The key aspects are still done extremely well overall, like the foreshadowing, the plot twists, keeping viewers on the edge of their seat, a story that remains fascinating, making it so each episode flies by. That sentiment hasn’t changed, but I did feel the pacing slowed down a bit in this season, though it may have be necessary.

  ART: 8.4/10

  Felt less rushed than the previous season, as Mappa had a bit more time to work on this. The CG and 2D aspects still aren’t done perfectly, but it was definitely an improvement to last cour. The animation in the ED this season was pretty spectacular though.

  MUSIC: 9.5/10

  We’ll talk about the opening and ending themes first. The Rumbling. Wow, SIM really did a nice job here, surprising me with the heavy metal, with a great chorus as well, a lot of people’s favourite opening for sure, though Red Swan remains my favourite. The ED for this season, Akuma no Ko, was one the most beautiful endings I’ve seen. Ai Higuchi, props to you! Very emotional and gripping lyrics, and great visuals to boot. Probably my favourite ending so far of the entire show.

  As for Sawano’s soundtrack. This show recycles a lot of their past themes, using the nostalgic factor at times, especially when “Barricades” played. That is fine to me, and while it may be seen as lazy, I have always enjoyed the entire soundtrack in Attack On Titan, and good music will always complement the show, recycled or not.

  CHARACTERS: 12.5/20

  The masterful character writing in previous seasons certainly carried over to some extent, but the second half really hurts the score here. I loved the first half, as Zeke and Grisha were so good to watch this season, because, like Marley, we don’t exactly root against them. Grisha has such a great voice actor as well, as that performance in “Memories of the Future” was so awesome to listen to.

  Other than that, we don’t see much development or good dialogue apart from Connie trying to save his mother and also killing his former comrades, Jean in the campfire scene, or Annie saying she doesn’t want to fight. Granted, these scenes were mostly pretty well executed, and emotional.

  Mikasa had her moment to shine when she ravaged a lot of the Jaegerists, and her fight scenes were certainly interesting and fun to watch. However, her character seems a bit static and uninteresting, made out to be a brute, which wasn’t that great in terms of development.

  Gabi continues her redemption arc, by saving people, and having some emotional scenes with Kaya and Falco, and that did make me enjoy her character a bit more. I never really hated her, but she has developed into a more “responsible” and mature person, which is good.

  Floch was a good villain, but nothing more. His attitude makes him a rat, and I have always said, if you strongly hate a character, it means he is written well, and I can see that here, though he doesn’t add a whole lot to the story.

  All in all, the lack of Eren hurts, and the fact that the second half was less of a character driven story, and more action, was not the path I wanted this show to go.

  Magath and Shadis though, what a duo.

  ENJOYMENT: 12.5/15

  Some episodes were great to see, but nothing stood out to me as amazing this season, after the reveal about the time travel and all that.

  THEMATIC EXECUTION: 14/20

  From all the political themes, and immersive dialogue and dark atmosphere and savagery and backstory from part 1 of Season 4, this season balances themes of war, camaraderie, and straight up action, which felt like a downgrade overall. As I’ve said, Season 1 was Attack On Titan at its worst, and this felt like Season 1.

  OVERALL: 76.4/100

  Don’t get me wrong, Attack On Titan has never been bad. This season was just a bit below my expectations, as the dialogue didn’t feel as strong, the whole aspect of time travel was not the path I envisioned, and the whole second half went in a direction I didn’t exactly enjoy. Still a wholly enjoyable season overall, but I would have liked to have seen a bit more spice, more scenes that made us stare at the screen in awe, because Attack On Titan has just been that good up until now. I do look forward to what comes next with the Final Edition in 2023.

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• 

  ChrisHacker

  12/100
  I already knew this was going to be one of the worst anime of 2022; I just wanted to witness this trainwreck unfold.

  ##### _(Warning: this review contains spoilers)_ ##### _Note: After like 2 years AniList decided to break my image links, I will fix them "soon"._ ##### Also this is more of a personal rant about the series rather than an actual, high effort and well-spoken review. If you are easily triggered or something (yes, people actually get triggered by other people's opinions nowadays) then I'd advise you not to read it. Anyway, with that being said let's get right into it: ##### ~~(that sounded like a generic youtuber's intro lmao)~~ --- --- #__Introduction.__

  ---

  Attack On Titan The Final Season Part 2 is way worse than I initially imagined. Jesus. I mean, I knew that the story was going to be bad and filled with plot conveniences and poorly written moments because I've read ahead in the manga after The Final Season Part 1. I also knew that the characters in AoT would continue to be shit (like they always have been) and mainly used as plot conveniences with a single and repeating character trait, rather than becoming actual fleshed-out characters who are supposed to be and behave like humans. But, at the very least I expected the animation to improve. Sadly it is still just as bad as it was in The Final Season Part 1, if not worse. While I never had high expectations for Attack On Titan, especially after Season 3 Part 2, I always thought it would at least be a visually stunning show to watch. This of course is no longer the case after The Final Season Part 1, since as we all know, MAPPA did one of the worst possible adaptations I've ever seen, with some absolutely horrendous CGI and, at times, little to no movement / animation with lots of grotesque looking and poorly drawn stills (I've included examples below, but we will get to that later). But... at the end of the day I could somewhat excuse that (emphasis on the word "somewhat", because personally something that looks this bad isn't excusable at all, but anyway) because the shitty animation in The Final Season Part 1 was probably due to time constraints, tight schedules, constant pressure from the producers, bad management, overworked employees etc. So when The Final Season Part 2 was announced for 2022 and after taking consideration that the studio would at the very least have more time on their hands work on this season and properly animate it, I expected a huge improvement in terms of visuals. Sadly when I started watching it, not only was I disappointed, but I was just plain shocked.

  ---

  Animation & Art.

  ---

  The Final Season Part 2 not only managed to be only slightly better than an average PowerPoint presentation you see by a not so diligent student in high school, but at some points it also has even less "movement" and "animation" compared to The Final Season Part 1 (which already had almost non existent animation to begin with), with like 80% of each episode being still images with only a character's mouth moving up and down. This is what we call animation nowadays folks. There are even several (and I really do mean several) times where there is literally no animation and a single badly drawn still image just... hangs in there for 5-10 seconds with literally nothing happening at all animation-wise, apart from a random-ass narration from a character in the background. Hell, a lot of the time there isn't even any dialogue during those stills, directly implying that they were just hastily added in there as "fillers" just to be able to hit that 20 minute run time each episode needs to fulfill. It really seems like they couldn't find anything else to put (or they didn't have the time, or they didn't ever bother to add something of importance) and they just said "fuck it, just fill the rest of the episode with a PowerPoint presentation made for free by my 12 year old nephew, I have seen The Promised Neverland S2, they did something similar, why shouldn't we?". But I digress. Most of the art and the faces of characters keep looking as if they are "melting", like they were drawn in one of those "guess the drawing" games where you have like a minute to draw something and the other people have to guess what it is. While those who suffer the most from this are the faces of background characters, that doesn't necessarily exclude the faces of main characters at the front of the screen, making some stills from the anime look like someone spilled some water over the drawings and then decided it was okay to include them into the final product. Sadly this problem just keeps getting worse and worse with each episode and by the time I got to episode 10 the problem was so bad that I now genuinely struggle to think of another popular and generally well-liked anime with worse animation than Attack On Titan. This anime (or "season/part", whatever you want to call it) in general had an abysmal production in terms of art and animation and people who say that MAPPA did as good of a job as WIT "but they have a different style" are just objectively wrong. The only thing that's (barely) keeping this from falling below the 1/10 mark in my eyes was some RARE but genuinely good background art, the arguably great voice acting, a short but nicely animated/directed sequence in episode 11 and episode 3. But those episodes, which in general were kinda decent (?), let's say like a 4/10 in terms of quality were a welcome, but in general pretty insignificant surprise in an otherwise abysmally ugly looking written show.

  ---

  Some Screenshots...

  ---

  Those screenshots were mainly taken from episodes 10 / 11, because it was at that point where I decided that I was going to make this review and I haven't started taking screenshots of the episodes yet because I had no reason to other than to laugh at them. Of course that doesn't mean that those are the only ones though, I have many more but I decided to spare your eyes from those abominations. And for those who are going to say "oh you just took some zoomed-in screenshots and you think that's bad animation? Of course characters in the background are going to look a bit sketchy" I'd like to tell you that these screenshots are not zoomed in, nor freeze-frames during intense action scenes (well, apart from that Armin face one, that was just way too hilarious not to include). Those images filled the whole screen and they were probably there for several seconds with little to no animation or a change in scenery or camera angles, making them inexcusable for... questionably one of the best, but arguably one of the most influential anime of all time.

  

  Note: Bro is literally missing his entire elbow.

  

  Note: It's baffling to me how wrong the perspective is in this one. Jean looks like he is a 2.5 meter fucking giant while Armin looks like a 130cm child.

  

  Note: this has to be one of the worst backgrounds I've seen like... ever. Genuinely looks like a badly rendered background from a PS1 game. On the left you can also clearly see a "line" of some sort which suggests that there are 2 different .png files that are not even connected properly. Like in old games where you had "dirt_1.png" transitioning into "dirt_2.png" but you could always tell where one started and where the other ended because of the graphical limitations of the time. I unironically would have done a better job connecting those two and making the transition more seamless with Photoshop in like half an hour.

  

  Note: apart from this being a really bad still (background looks like a ps2 game's graphics with the "cartoon filter" and that Yelena woman looks like she was drawn in milliseconds) I wanted to ask; WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THIS GUY'S PALM??? (the one dressed in white)

  

  Armin's face is literally me during the entirety of those 12eps.

  Keep in mind btw that all those screenshots came from the last 3 episodes (this is around the time when I decided I'd make this review) and I caught ALL THOSE animation errors and/or badly drawn stills while watching on 2x speed. The amount of atrociously bad stills and animation errors in the sad excuse of an anime probably far exceeds what I can show you here (I will never forget that LITERAL 50 SECONDS OF A STILL IMAGE OF A FOREST in the middle of episode 9 for example).

  ---

  Characters.

  ---

  I could also go on and on about the characters and how badly I believe they are written / developed, but that's mostly a problem that began from the very first season and carried throughout the series, so it's not necessarily this season's fault. Although one could argue that it actually is this season's fault for not trying (or trying but failing) to fix its characters and their issues. Eren continues to be an extremely edgy and predictable Lelouch copycat, Mikasa continues to be basically a simp for Eren throughout the series, with this being her one and only personality trait since season one (wow she is such a great character and the best written female character ever :0), Gabi still is one of the worst written and most annoying characters in anime history, with her presence in the anime being completely forced and unnecessary since the time she was introduced, her "friendship" (lmao I can't believe I'm saying this for a person she actively tried to fucking kill) with the blond haired chick who I fail to recall the name of is still one of the most braindead writing decisions I've seen in my life (also she is not a unique character, that "oh I used to hate the other side but now I kinda get them" thing has been done to death, if you think that's original then you just haven't seen enough anime/shows/series), Armin continues to be that irrelevant "friendship above all" character each anime seems to need for some reason and like Mikasa this seems to be his only personality trait like a fucking robot that's programmed to be that way, and lastly Reiner continues to be that lucky bastard who literally can't die for plot convenience purposes. Motherfucker could have a nuclear bomb drop and explode on top of him and the show would still pull some bullshit reason on how he would, and should, survive. Fans of the show will say that "if you pay attention to the plot you would understand why him surviving makes sense", but I'd argue that's mostly the plot "bending" itself and developing in a way to make Reiner live, instead of the opposite. But I digress... The rest of the character cast is either completely forgettable and irrelevant (that bold guy for example, Connie I believe was his name?) or just straight up annoying and unlikable (seriously who even likes that Hange girl), and the only 2 good characters in the show are either dead (Erwin) or... for-some-stupid-plot-armory-reason-not-dead-despite-having-a-fucking-explosion-go-off-right-in-front-of-them (Levi).

  ---

  Story.

  ---

  For similar reasons I won't go into detail about the story. What started off as a cool idea quickly turned into a plot armor/ plot hole shit-show around Season 3 Part 2 (since the whole Reiner getting his fucking head blown off but still surviving and Armin being burnt to a crisp, turning into charcoal but... still surviving enough time to be given the titan fluid...?) and The Final Season Part 2 is certainly no exception. Everything in this season feels like it was introduced as a way to fix some previously obvious plot holes (paths for example) only to make them even worse and more apparent in the process, rather than actually being part of the story from the start and the whole thing "coming together" in a "big and grandiose reveal" or whatever. The whole attack on titan storyline as a whole has become more and more of a jumbled mess rather than a normal, coherent and well-written story and it gets worse and worse with each installment. Things happen only to shock us but then they are revealed to be not so important (Armin """""dying""""" again), huge battles happen with literally no casualties for our main boisss (Mikasa killing like... 1000 people in ep 11 without having a single scratch YAAAAS SLAY QUEEEN ) and blah blah blah... But then again, those are problems that AoT always had, so I can't really pretend to suddenly care and be even more overly critical about all that now in The Final Season Part 2.

  ---

  My thoughts...

  ---

  I never really cared which anime is considered to be "the best" by the community, but Attack on Titan is by far the least deserving of that title. Not only because I personally hate it and because I'm "a mindless hater who hates popular stuff to get attention" as some people will claim, but because it's an objectively bad show. Definitely animation-wise, although I could argue that it's also bad character-wise, as well as story-wise, because it has some objective problems with its writing in those aspects, like plot holes and such. But at the same time Attack On Titan is an action show, so I consider those problems to affect my enjoyment of the show way more than that of a normal action-loving viewer who just turns their brain off and just watches the show for how hot Mikasa and Eren are. In my eyes though, over the past few years and especially after MAPPA took over its production, Attack on Titan has become a genuinely bad show that is not only outclassed by literally every other critically acclaimed anime I can think of, but it has also become worse than generic memed-to-shit isekai "trash" like sword art online (which at the very least had some minor improvements in terms of it's storytelling over the years, plus some amazing animation) and is comparable in terms of quality with shit like the "milf isekai" and the "smartphone isekai". Just like those anime still milking the isekai cash cow that SAO created, Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 2 feels like a genuine cash grab to capitalize on a craze. A craze that was created by itself, way back in 2013. It has now become the lowest of the low when it comes to manga adaptations for profit. A blatant copy-paste of the (already kind of average looking) manga panels with little-to-no creative / artistic input and alterations to make it more suitable for an anime format. Taking the manga panels, coloring them and then making that into an anime is NOT a good and creative way of doing things and NOT a sign of "a great and faithful adaptation" as many people (falsely) claim, it is something even an amateur animator can do. A real masterpiece is when the anime adaptation elevates the original source material to new heights and makes things that were originally impossible in a manga format, possible through the medium of animation. Something that truly transcends the source material. A true masterpiece isn't merely "faithful to the manga". And The Final Season Part 2 is far from a good adaptation, let alone a masterpiece. MAPPA's version of Attack on Titan is for me one of the biggest failures I've seen in anime adaptations ever.

  ---

  Conclusion.

  ---

  I know I will get a lot of hate for this review and I don't really care. I think it's stupid to be like "well, what I believe about this show is vastly different from the general consensus, so I won't talk about it" etc. I genuinely hate this show. I genuinely believe it is objectively subpar. I'm tired of pretending it's not just because the community thinks otherwise. I would even go as far as to say that I genuinely believe it sets an extremely bad precedent for every anime sequel that is set to air and come out after this one. It proves that hype itself is enough to carry a show to "greatness", not actual talent, work, creativity etc. Just take some already successful manga, colour its panels, turn that into the most creativity-starved anime, hire some great voice actors so that we seem legit and we're good to go. When The Way of the Househusband did exactly that everyone got mad, but when "The best anime of all-time" does it is "cool" and "MAPPA did a better job than WIT because it's a more faithful adaptation than that of WIT's" or some other bullshit. I feel like concepts like "creativity", "passion" and "innovation" in the anime industry are dying and Attack on Titan is partially the reason why; if not, then it's definitely the reason this mindset and work ethic is becoming more and more prevalent. It should be common sense that overworked animators, directors (etc...) with extremely tight schedules can't make a solid product. Attack on Titan is probably the best (or worst, depending on how you see it) example of this that I've seen in my 5 years of anime-watching.

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